An Amur Tiger Stalking the Snowy Streets of a Suburb of Vladivostok...

I walk around in a Diver's Cage of the first movement of K. 563, daring "her" to attack me--and she does, jumping clean over the first four notes unison, and landing with all four paws on the D in the third measure, kicking the hell with her hind feet out of the scale passages in the next several measures, while I kootchie-kootch the incredible softness of the fur at the base of her throat, just to tease her.

Il più bel saggio che ho scritto io....

'Twas a tour de force: For two credit-hours in Italian which my advisor permitted me (such was his benevolent omnipotence) to count as the last two credit-hours I needed for my degree in French--in my dual B.A. in French and Italian--in Fiabe Italiane: I (1) translated Perrault's 'Cinderella' from French into Italian, then (2) described what happened to it when Rossini's librettist turned it into La Cenerentola. My professor, an elegant, ancient, erudite Italian lady, said, "Bel saggio!" and gave me an 'A.'